


they're talking about you boy (but you're still the same)

by grayglube



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Multi, Parabatai Bond, Pseudo-Incest, Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:40:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6804874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grayglube/pseuds/grayglube
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A parabatai is like a lover, until you have a lover.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they're talking about you boy (but you're still the same)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohyellowbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohyellowbird/gifts).
  * Inspired by [the shivers (i've got 'em)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6551890) by [ohyellowbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohyellowbird/pseuds/ohyellowbird). 



> This was supposed to be longer but I decided to split it into two different things, this is a sequel of sorts to ohyellowbird's "the shivers (i've got 'em)"

Their bond is weaker than it was, because of him.

 

They used to be in sync and they used to anticipate the other’s movements, what one felt the other understood and accepted, now they fight like something that’s made of rusted junk parts.

 

Alec lies in bed and feels the itch and discomfort of knowledge he doesn’t want, Jace is with Clary again, it’s late and Alec wants to sleep and they’re fucking again.

 

The truth behind their parentage being revealed has soothed them past angst and shot them towards the intimacy that was altogether off limits.

 

Alec wonders if it would have lasted, if they never learned the truth how long they would have kept themselves from each other.

 

He wonders sometimes the same of himself. He knows he would have found his way to Magnus, even if he had married Lydia no matter how furtive and destructive it might have been. But he didn’t and Magnus is across the city in a bed Alec has visited more times than his own in the last month.

 

There’s awareness in him that is discomfiting and voyeuristic, Jace feels good and Alec needs to find some place else to be. He doesn’t text Magnus as he walks up the stairs to his loft and he’s let in all the same before he’s even knocked on the door.

 

And if he lets Magnus go much further much sooner than he expected then he can say it’s because of the drinks, or the adrenaline of doing something unexpected. If he kisses back harder and presses closer then he can say it’s because he’s starved for the touch of someone he wants who wants him back.

* * *

 

He stares at the hickey Jace has left on her skin. She’s in the infirmary, stripped out of her jacket and there’s the purpling smear left behind from teeth and the warm suction of his parabatai’s mouth on the top of her breast above the edge of her tank top.

 

She follows his eyes, crosses her arms and lets her hair fall forward over it. She starts a conversation to distract them both from their sudden shared discomfort.

 

He feels Jace walk in through the door.

 

It’s just a soundless presence of arousal and Clary’s face smiling at whoever it is. When Alec leaves he knows enough, _feels_ , enough to steer his sister away from the infirmary. If he tells Simon exactly where to find Clary then it’s because the other boy seems to be in genuine, albeit common distress, over _something_ , it’s because he knows Simon and Clary are such close friends.

 

If he feels some small sort of petty exhilaration in the way Jace and Simon scowl at each other across the table top that turns the whole room to almost-there static later then it’s barely consequential.

 

If he feels more than a gentle nudge of guilt at the way Clary looks at him later, helplessly confused over his actions then he can pair it against his anger at having to avoid the institute at night and come up with balanced scales.

* * *

 

 

Jace finds him, inevitably, the bond works both ways and Alec’s not the only one who’s angry. Jace doesn’t hit him but Alec knows he comes close, they clench their opposite fists at the same time.

 

“You want to repair our bond?” Jace nods a taunt and presses closer without waiting for an answer, “You broke it. You don’t get to be angry over me hating you a little for that.”

 

But he doesn’t hate him, Alec knows they can never really hate each other, just themselves, he wonders what that would feel like on the other end of their bond. He can’t help the words that come out, the ones he’s thought but never articulated because there was never a time for it, never a place, but out in the dark of a city underpass looking for what’s left of Valentine’s army he says, “You treated my feelings like they didn’t matter.”

 

Jace’s nostril’s flare on an angry inhale, the gel stick of his hair is coming loose in the heat of the night and the sweat dotting his brow, there are things he hasn’t said either and Alec feels them in his gut like swallowed rocks before he hears them. “You parabatai bonded with me knowing you felt a certain way that would have always ended badly.”

 

Jace isn’t wrong but Alec still lies, “I didn’t know _what_ I was feeling.”

 

“Now you know exactly what you’re feeling. Right? Don't blame me for your baggage.” Jace walks away and Alec has no idea what either of them feels, it’s too tangled up together to tear back apart.

* * *

 

 

He wonders later if he’d gone knowing he’d find them.

 

He knew what they’d be doing if he did find them.

 

Things have become twisted with the knowledge that what he’s feeling is knotted up with what Jace is feeling.

 

He doesn’t know why he pushed open a half-closed door. Jace may have left it open, but he’s the one who looked around it to find what he knew he would find. Jace mouthing 'It's okay' over Clary's shoulder, his cock disappearing inside of her, the exhale of happiness and satisfaction, his and hers following Alec down the hall pushes him past a point of self-loathing he didn't think was possible to beat.  

 

Magnus comments on his bad mood later.

 

Jace grins over breakfast, greeting him with good-morning, as if he’s oblivious, as if he isn’t as cruel as Alec’s proved to be when the mood strikes.

 

Alec thinks this is why Parabatai are forbidden certain things, maybe it's misplaced eros that makes a connection deeper than it should be, as debilitating as a mortal wounding.

* * *

 

 

“Jace loves you.”

 

“Like a brother.”

 

“I loved him like a brother, because I had too, for a while.”

 

Something in the way Clary says it sounds guilty. Alec’s wondered for a long time about things that might have happened. He wonders what happened the night they got Jace back.

 

It was days until Clary and him found out he was just the boy Valentine stole not the boy Jocelyn lost in the fire.

 

Alec wonders if it happened that first night, alone on the abandoned ship before everyone caught up, or a day later after the Clave meetings, or any other time before they knew the truth that they fucked for the first time.

* * *

 

 

They don’t talk, they yell, Jace throwing up his hands, “What the fuck do you want me to do!”

 

“Fucking stop!”

 

Jace exhales like a laugh, “Yeah, sure.”

 

“You’re a fucking asshole.” It's an accusation that sounds like it's coming from a child and Alec wishes he could force some viciousness into the words.

 

“Yeah, I’m not the one skulking around.”

 

“You might as well have invited me to watch.”

 

“What’s the difference of what room you’re in? I feel you fucking  _think_ sometimes.”

 

“…”

 

“Nothing to say? Thought so.”

 

Jace is turning away and then he’s being pulled back. Jace’s neck is like iron, hard like a support beam under his hand. Something seethes in Jace because he has to go up in his toes as Alec pulls him close. Teeth clacking because they kiss like they punch. Sure, sudden, hard.

 

It’s something that’s been waiting between them and Alec knows Jace knows he’s liked it as much as he’s hated it, the wait and the hurt of it. The bond he made that went against his code of following the rules because somewhere he always knew how he felt. Alec's always envied how easy Jace has been able to bend and break the rules.

* * *

 

Magnus eyes him over the edge of his book, “You’re feeling guilty about something. Don’t.”

 

“You don’t even know what I did.” He has a pillow over his face but he can feel Magnus look at him, the pillow pulls away and Magnus has shut his book.

 

“You’re textbook presentation of ‘I did something I shouldn’t have with someone I shouldn’t have’, you’re here now, and you feel bad, isn’t that enough?”

 

“Is it?”

 

The smile he is given is fond, “You shadowhunters love self-flagellation”

 

“…”

 

“You and Jace will always have something that’s too much to be good for the both of you at the same time.”

 

“He doesn’t think he’s wrong, he never does.”

 

* * *

 

 

What he did and what he does is come into a room he shouldn’t, Clary’s little body all over Jace’s bigger one, she’s all filled up, eyes wide open, and they fuck sitting up, chest to chest and she sees him over the rise of Jace’s shoulder.

 

Her hand tightens in his hair and she presses her lips together tight on a moan.

 

Her shins criss-cross around his spine and the flare of his hips and Alec watches her hair move as her head inclines back, forward, side to side, as expressive as her face. She breathes, “hey,” and presses at Jace’s strong jaw, his head turns, his mouth shiny and chin damp, hair falling over his eyes, they’ve been at it awhile and Alec swallows, tries not to keep his face so stony.

 

“Hey.”

 

Clary’s gentle smile and Jace’s soft apprehension make things easier and when he sits at the edge of the bed they still move slowly, together, watching him.

 

Jace kisses him, eyes closed tight and Alec can feel the way his heart beats through their bond, he knew once what it was like to be so unsure.

 

They slow their pace, disengaging to undress him and he lets them.

 

Clary feels like she’s shivering, Jace’s motions are unfocused and fast, missing their mark and Alec shuts his eyes.

 

He can’t tell who is touching and who is touched, whether it’s Jace touching him or Clary touching Jace. He slips his tongue over Jace’s and it’s not love but that doesn’t mean it’s bad and Jace's cock is slick from Clary and hot in Alec's hand.

 

Jace’s groan bleeds like watercolors, and Clary presses her mouth on his shoulders, his neck in eager response. Alec cants up against his closest friend, hips bruising hips and Jace is blonde floss and scars all along his abdomen.

 

Clary’s presence feels like allowance, like the permission he’s wondered about waiting for.

 

They press and rub and kiss and Alec feels what Jace feels, the throb and shame and rage and the love that isn’t really love, not anymore, not for either of them. Jace spurts, and his orgasm leaves him wreck, weak and sticky and Alec presses a hand under his sac to make it last.

 

He wonders if they jerk off the same way, instinctually because they’ve always been in sync, Alec comes hard, and comes back down boneless, half in dreams. Jace pulls Clary close and she’s between them. Alex doesn’t think it’s so bad anymore. They need the buffer because they've worn each other down raw over the years without taking account of the damage. It was always meant to turn out like that, Alec knows. He tries not to be hurt by it, to feel alright but even after tasting Jace’s mouth and painting his skin in his own body’s vital heat and need it doesn’t heal anything.

 

Not for either of them.

 

Jace still pulls Clary closer, puts her on her back and slips down between her stronger than they used to be legs, her hands reach across the bed, one finds Alec’s. He let’s her hold it because Jace loves her and he’s always been a little in love with Jace.

 

In the low light of the room he can see the copper gleam of Clary’s sex and the balmy sweat over the smallness of her breasts, he sees Jace’s eyes look up from between her thighs and the breaking strand of slick on his tongue as he pulls back just to listen to her whine. Jace fucks her with his mouth and Alec wonders if it’s the first time he’s done it. They move over each other like they’ve done it forever. He’s jealous.  A parabatai is like a lover, until you have a lover.

 

When Clary asks him to stay he almost lets himself settle down to rest between them somewhere between Jace’s arms and Clary’s thighs, but he can’t and he doesn’t because it’s fear that he’ll says yes that makes Jace’s heart beat faster in distress.


End file.
